The Fast family is back for more high-octane thrills and insane vehicular madness, all wrapped up with colorful characters and globe-spanning locations. For Fast & Furious 9, Vin Diesel’s Dominic Toretto and Michelle Rodriguez’s Letty are content with a quiet family life off the grid with young Brian. Until, that is, they get drawn back into a world of danger and action, this time facing off a dangerous threat, one that resurfaces old wounds for Dom in particular.
Franchise patriarch Diesel is back for more action as Dominic Toretto. One of the driving forces behind the Fast films, Diesel has made it his mission to help bring fans bigger and better experiences. Diesel, the cast and the filmmakers talk about magnets in action sequences, cars and why they’re so happy and look forward to have a Fast film headed to cinemas.
Fast and Furious 9 aka F9 opens in Philippine cinemas on January 26 from Universal Pictures International.
The limited engagement theatrical release unleashes the highly successful franchise’s latest jaw-dropping innovative stunts best viewed in theaters for that ultimate adrenaline boost we all need to break the monotony from being cooped up inside our homes.
F9 is the ninth chapter in the Fast & Furious Saga, which has endured for two decades and has earned more than $5 billion around the world.
Vin Diesel’s Dom Toretto is leading a quiet life off the grid with Letty and his son, little Brian, but they know that danger always lurks just over their peaceful horizon. This time, that threat will force Dom to confront the sins of his past if he’s going to save those he loves most. His crew joins together to stop a world-shattering plot led by the most skilled assassin and high-performance driver they’ve ever encountered: a man who also happens to be Dom’s forsaken brother, Jakob (John Cena).
The film stars returning cast members Michelle Rodriguez, Tyrese Gibson, Chris “Ludacris” Bridges, Nathalie Emmanuel, Jordana Brewster and Sung Kang, with Oscar® winner Helen Mirren, with Kurt Russell and Oscar® winner Charlize Theron.
They are joined by Fast fan favorites Don Omar, Lucas Black, Shad “Bow Wow” Moss and Jason Tobin as well as new additions to the ensemble including Anna Sawai (Ninja Assassin, series Giri/Haji) as Elle, a highly skilled fighter guarding an important secret, Thue Ersted Rasmussen as Otto, a budding despot who’s working with Jakob Toretto, and Grammy-winning superstar Cardi B as Leysa, a woman with a connection to Dom’s past. The film also features a cameo by Reggaeton sensation Ozuna.
Bold, over-the-top, hyper-real action has become the hallmark of every Fast film, and F9 ups the game yet again. “For every Fast film we follow what we call ‘The Gattaca Rule’: Leave nothing for the swim back,” producer Jeffrey Kirschenbaum says. “In other words, we approach every new Fast movie as though it were our last and we don’t hold back on anything when it comes to coming up with new and inventive ways to integrate cars with action. Long story short—there is no such thing as too crazy or too big when it comes to Fast.”
Automotive eye candy is an intrinsic part of the Fast saga. From the moment Dom Toretto and Brian O’Conner pulled up to the starting line in The Fast and the Furious behind the wheels of a classic American muscle car and a tuned-up neon-colored import, the film struck a cultural nerve and has become forever linked with global car culture.
Now almost 20 years later, while Dom is ostensibly a family man living a quiet life in Central California with Letty and his son Little Brian, he still favors good ole’ American muscle and maintains an enviable but diverse fleet of Dodge Chargers to prove it. Fast cars are synonymous with Dominic Toretto and each legacy character throughout the franchise.
From exotics, American muscles, Japanese imports, and military armored and off-vehicles, to custom-built specialty cars and rigs with the production’s special-effects teams, the filmmakers relied on their veteran go-to team to create the most thrilling vehicle fleet in Fast franchise history. Longtime Fast alumni Dennis McCarthy returned as F9’s picture vehicle supervisor to curate and custom-build the unique fleet of vehicles for his eighth film in the franchise. McCarthy, who has continued to work with director Justin Lin on other film and television projects, knows Lin’s tastes and has an invaluable shorthand with him when it comes to delivering the unexpected or hard-to-find.
A big element of the third-act chase sequence is the monstrous 14-foot-high, 26-ton, three-section armored vehicle dubbed the ARMADILLO. Working with production designer Jan Roelfs, King was tasked with the gargantuan effort of engineering and executing another custom build that would meet both the creative demands of the scripted action and the functional demands of stunt driving at high speeds along the curved, hilly streets of Tbilisi. It took King and his department four months to work out the mechanical, electrical and fabrication requirements to complete two versions of the Armadillo and to have them prepped and ready for filming in Tbilisi.
“The Armadillo, or as I’ve always called it, the Mother Trucker, is the biggest on-screen vehicle I’ve ever seen and certainly that I’ve ever built,” King says. “The moment I saw the first concepts, I knew it would be a challenge. I just needed to work out how best to achieve that build. For me that meant breaking it down to, first, where do you start with your vehicle base? What’s your vehicle donor? Next is functionality. What’s the journey of the vehicle, and what does it need to accomplish on-camera? Number three was how do you get it from one place to the other; how easy is it to maneuver and transport? All these elements are running through your mind. In the end it was all worth it. The Armadillo outperformed our expectations and it looks like nothing is going to stop it, and that was the whole point. It’s the biggest and toughest thing on the road and it just keeps going. It’s like the Hulk on wheels.”
King ended up sourcing dozens of exotic super cars for Otto’s exclusive Tuner Party as well as for the posh party Queenie Shaw crashes. For that Queenie scene, shot along the street outside high-end jeweler Boodles in the tiny London neighborhood of Mayfair, King’s team showcased the NOBLE M600 along with a BUGATTI VEYRON, a BENTLEY CONTINENTAL GT, a ROLLS ROYCE WRAITH, an ASTON MARTIN RAPIDE, a MORGAN AERO 8 and a MERCEDES SLR McLAREN. All said, close to £2.5 million (approx. $1.8 million U.S.) worth of high-end super cars graced the set for filming just that one scene.
With a massive number of custom-built vehicles needed for filming across three different continents, McCarthy and King divvied up the labor-intensive work to give Lin and second-unit director Spiro Razatos every vehicular weapon in their collective arsenal to pull off the action beats for numerous sequences, each with distinct requirements and aesthetics. Off-road ATVs, motorbikes, military trucks, American classic cars and high-end performance vehicles were all essential to the action Lin visualized.
Nothing embodies a Fast character more than the car she or he drives. When you see the car, you know the character. For McCarthy, the opportunity to source or build original, one-of-a-kind cars that look great and perform well is both his greatest pleasure and his biggest challenge. “Over the years, the cast cars have developed along with each character and have become extensions of who they are,” McCarthy says. “With each new chapter, my objective is to sync the cars with the cast. The goal is always for the audience to instantly know which car is for which character.”
Dom is a Dodge man through-and-through, and in F9 alone his enviable collection includes the original rebuilt 1327 CHARGER, safely tucked away in the garage of the new Toretto home along with the sleek 1970 CHARGER TANTRUM, the new wide-body 2020 CHARGER SRT HELLCAT, powering through the jungles of Central America, and the MID-ENGINE CHARGER, roaring through the streets of Edinburgh and Tbilisi.
From his first read of the F9 script, McCarthy began to formulate which standout cars he needed to slot into key scenes. The third-act action sequence in Tbilisi seemed like the perfect scene for a version of the Mid-Engine Charger. Working with his own team of veteran mechanics as well as with the team at SpeedKore, whose fabrications and custom builds have long been a strong presence in the franchise since Furious 7, the roaring Mid-Engine Charger and several hybrid versions came to life.
“Dom’s third-act car, the Mid-Engine Charger, was the one car that really jumped out at me when I read the script,” McCarthy says. “Coming up with a fresh version of a Dom Charger gets trickier with every new installment because there isn’t much that we haven’t already done. Dom’s F9 Charger had to be something that was over-the-top, iconic and different from what we’ve done in the past. With its mega-horsepower Dodge Hellcat motor, unique Charger engine location, and combination of old and new technology, the Mid-Engine Charger satisfies all of these criteria. This Charger is now my all-time favorite Fast & Furious car.”
Not to be overlooked, the rest of the team get to flex their automotive muscle in their own inimitable ways. Whether on a YAMAHA YZ250F, a HARLEY DAVIDSON IRON motorcycle or a 1969 CHEVY NOVA, Letty’s need for speed is satisfied, while Tej’s cutting-edge-yet-functional JEEP GLADIATOR gets the job done.
While Roman gets behind the wheel of the HONDA NSX, as is his wont, he wholly embraces the tenet of “Go Big or Go Home” with the MARAUDER, a military armored vehicle which, in true Roman style, is the wrong car for the occasion.
Han’s return could only be behind the wheel of a sleek, turbocharged orange/black 2020 TOYOTA GR SUPRA, which is an emotional throwback to the similarly colored Mazda RX-7 he drove in Tokyo Drift. This was one of several specific directives from Lin when he and McCarthy first discussed the film’s cast of cars.
And, in a first for the franchise, one car gets strapped to jet engines. Tej and Roman unwittingly find Sean, Twinkie and Earl acting like crazy scientists as they test an ingeniously modified 1984 PONTIAC FIERO. The results were literally out of this world.
Lin also had a very specific vision for Jakob Toretto’s car. A Ford Mustang was his only choice for Jakob, an accomplished L.A. street racer in his own right. Despite the family rift, Jakob is a Toretto through-and-through and thematically, the real-world rivalry between Dodge Charger and Ford Mustang mirrored the tension between the Toretto brothers. Jakob’s car, a specific directive from Lin, is as American muscle as it gets—a modified high-performance 2016 FORD MUSTANG GT350 with a supercharged V8, 640-horsepower engine.
On any given day when cars were on set, John Cena was in heaven as he surveyed automotive eye candy of every kind. “Being a storyteller is a gift, so joining a global franchise where there’s a focus on cars is something special for me,” Cena says. “It was really cool to be surrounded by elements of automotive culture every single day. The Fast franchise still keeps its roots in the car culture—and the people clamoring for what’s next in the car world—and I think that’s really special.”
While Dom and each member of the team have their signature cars, the true showcase of a Fast film’s eye candy is the Tuner Party scene. Stunning women and equally sleek and sexy super cars seed F9’s party, which is decidedly upscale and very European. Dom is escorted to meet spoiled billionaire enfant terrible Otto at his opulent estate and is greeted with the sensory-overload spectacle of a tuner party happening on the grounds. Dom, Otto and Jakob are dead serious while hedonistic frivolity swirls around them amid the meticulously manicured and sprawling grounds of Hatfield House, a Jacobean estate located outside of London.
Over a dozen U.K.-based car enthusiasts gladly accepted the invitation to show off their prized four-wheeled babies worth close to £10 million (approx. $7.3 million U.S.) including a TVR SAGARIS, a LAMBORGHINI AVENTADOR SVJ, a LEXUS LFA, a LOTUS EVORA, a MERCEDES AMG GT R, a LAMBORGHINI COUNTACH ANNIVERSARY EDITION, a McLAREN 720S and the pièce de résistance, an APOLLO IE and a FERRARI LA FERRARI.